I just finished Soon-to-be-Ex, a Guide to the Perfect Divorce and Relaunch, nothing less than a tour de force by Manhattan’s titan of divorce, lawyer Jacqueline Newman.
So far as I can tell, she’s the go-to-gal for divorcing Upper East Side New Yorkers (meaning the rich ones) – the book written especially for women. The brilliant and sometimes hilarious book systematically describes how to destroy your spouse in court, as well as guiding you through the treacherous terrain of what she calls “Divorceland".
But here’s the thing:
Having recently read Saints, Sinners & Heroes: Covert Ops in the Wars against the C-Suite Mafia, it got me thinking…where’s the whistleblowing divorcée hero the media is waiting to devour? The innocent wife who, over the course of a ten-year marriage, has watched her husband’s company go from clean to dirty and overheard one too many conversations while he left the dinner table to take a work call…again.
Picture this: said wife is aware her husband’s company has been screwing the government out of millions of dollars but, of course, says nothing.
When she finds out her husband is also screwing their son’s French tutor she says au revoir to the nuptials and suddenly feels a little less understanding of the fraud. Theoretically, she could then be primed to be the perfect relator which I know from Saints is a whistleblower seeking a cash bounty by filing a certain kind of lawsuit.
She knows everything he’s shared or let slip with her, and guess what? His home office happens to have some papers lying around that drive the nail into the coffin. Of this $300 million case, she’s entitled to 1/5 as a reward! Merci, French tutor.
Is this a thing? I can only imagine that some of the same white collar criminals ripping off America are also sleeping with their secretaries (cliché, I know. Trainer?!). This sector of slime balls is at least as prone to divorce as the rest of us suckers.
After reading Jacqueline’s incredible account of exactly how to, figuratively speaking, remove a man’s testicles and wear them as earrings (an actual request from one of her clients!), I can’t help but think some Wall Street wives and medical mogul’s soon-to-be exes are missing out here.
Why not collect $200 before passing Go? Or, for that matter, $200 million.